Terrible.
Self-employed Jen Waldron is one of about 500 protesters outside the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Portland, Oregon. Like activist Rachel Lissman, she is outraged that border agents opened fire on a man and a woman in a car.
"It's only a matter of time before someone is killed," Lissman tells local newspaper OPB .
The protest is reported to have largely remained peaceful, but when police tried to disperse the demonstrators in the evening the situation became tense, with shouting and arrests.
Criminal connection?
The man and woman are being treated at a Portland hospital, with no word on how seriously injured they are. They were shot by agents from another agency, Customs and Border Protection (CBP), on Thursday in connection with what appears to have been a vehicle stop, according to media reports.
The US Department of Homeland Security confirmed the incident in Portland and said border agents opened fire in self-defense. A passenger in the car is described by the department as an undocumented migrant from Venezuela, with ties to a criminal network, who entered the US illegally.
"When the agents identified themselves, the driver used his vehicle as a weapon and attempted to run over the agents," the statement reads.
"Fearing for his life and safety, an agent fired a defensive shot. The driver drove away with the passenger and fled the scene."
Flowers and candles
The shooting came the day after a 37-year-old woman was shot dead by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota, which sparked major protests in the city and elsewhere in the country.
The site of the fatal shooting is now a mountain of flowers, candles and placards demanding accountability. The shooting took place just a few kilometers from the spot where George Floyd was killed in a high-profile police intervention in 2020.
"All those feelings are coming back now," Trahern Crews, co-founder of the Black Lives Matter movement in Minnesota, tells NPR.
President Donald Trump has long advocated a crackdown on migrants who are in the United States illegally, accusing undocumented immigrants of violent crimes and drug trafficking. In the past year, mass raids against undocumented immigrants have been carried out in a number of cities and those arrested have been deported.
Corrected: In a previous version, there was an incorrect name for an authority.
